Midnight Drives
by MadameHyde
Summary: Gunnery Officer Garrus Vakarian has come face-to-face with his own mortality more times than he can count, but it's never more apparent than when Shepherd is driving. A series of interconnected oneshots.


**Hello, all!**

**Bought the trilogy as a reward for not clocking out before finals, and I have to say, the vehicle maneuvering is so bad, it makes these things want to write themselves. Thus, Shepard is a shitty driver and the crew makes up for it somehow. So, who knows how many of these there will be.**

**Love these games, though. I own nothing.**

**Onward.**

**-)**

"Gentlemen," Shepard announced from behind the wheel, "I'm not going to lie. I hate the Mako—it feels like a tank and drives like a snake. But I'll be _damned_ if I don't love midnight Mako rides."

"That's because you're the one _driving, _Shepard!" I called down from the gunnery turret. _"Spirits, _I think Alenko's about to lose his dinner."

The Mako was currently speeding across some unknown planet, looking for spirits-knew-what. Well, looking for Shepard-knew-what I suppose. I'd missed the mission explanation while trying to down enough dextro coffee to be alert enough to man the guns. I'd _been_ happily asleep before that.

"Didn't eat," Kaidan Alenko said uneasily. I'm no expert on human physiology, but I was pretty sure they weren't supposed to be that shade of green. "Knew Shep would be driving."

_Shep_. Not Shepard. Not Commander. _Shep._ It was the closest any of us got to her first name.

Alright, so maybe there _was _some truth to the rumors flying around the Normandy. Maybe that _was_ why I'd run into a crying Liara more than once and awkwardly stood there with _no idea _how to handle the situation. And maybe that was why Tali'Zorah had talked the asari—what was the human phrase…?—down off the ledge more than once. I think she was the only one Liara felt even remotely comfortable talking feelings with. Which was fine by the rest of us, really; Wrex and I are not cut out for that sort of thing.

"Garrus!" Shepard called up to me, jerking me out of my train of thought. "Do you know where we put Wrex's bag?"

"Wrex has a _bag…?" _Kaidan interjected.

"Yeah," I said, poking my head down into the main body of the Mako for a moment. I'm sure it looked rather comical having half a turian hanging upside-down from the ceiling. "Apparently krogan do not have, as Shepard says, cast iron stomachs."

At that point, Shepard hit a particularly nasty bump in the road that nearly sent me crashing to the floor and had Kaidan glancing around hastily for something to throw up in that _wasn't _hishelmet.

"Sorry!" Shepard said wincingly from the driver's seat. Driving was the only time she really apologized.

"I'm beginning to see why you don't take Tali on these trips," I commented mildly as I clambered back up into the gunnery turret.

I couldn't see Kaidan's face, but even from the single tone in his flat human voice, I could tell he was shocked at the thought. I may not be great with reading humans, but I now lived in close quarters with several of them and was rapidly improving. "How would a quarian even throw up? You'd make yourself worse trying not to get it in your helmet..."

"I'm sure there's an, ah, irrigation system," I commented, and not for the first time, I wished that these humans could hear my sub-tones that announced that yes, that was a joke.

Shepard laughed though. _"Irrigation system!" _she got out.

"Why don't you turn on your screechy human music or something?" I called down to her as dismissively as a turian will ever address his CO.

Shepard called out "That's a great idea!" over Kaidan's confused "Screechy human music?" and the Mako was flooded with so-called screechy human music. It basically consisted of a lot of crashing guitars and screaming that Shepard had assured me was actually singing on multiple occasions.

That was the thing about music—lyrics never really translate. And I'm not talking poetic meter; I'm talking literally. A lot of translators can't handle it. That's why most clubs play music without words. You get a lot fewer headaches from the customers that way. And as a former C-SEC officer, trust me when I say fewer headaches with krogan around are a good thing_. _They don't understand the concept of "suffering in silence."

We settled into relative silence and Shepard's music flooded the Mako. For a while, no one but the singer in the songs said anything. She drove; I took out a few Geth; Alenko tried not to vomit all over the place. We eventually found Wrex's customary bag for him, hiding underneath a box of spare ammo Shepard knocked loose at some point.

All would have been business as usual, except Shepard kept throwing a glance over her left shoulder and flashing an apologetic grin at Kaidan, and he'd reply with a weak grin that was more like an expression of pain. It made my skull buzz, the way it did when something was wrong. _Soldiers' Sense, _we turians called it. I heard humans had something similar.

Commander Shepard sure as hell only apologized when she'd actually done something wrong (like nearly breaking my spur in a scramble to duck and cover in a firefight, for example). Sure, her driving was less-than-stellar, but it wasn't something to _apologize _over, it was just something to fix.

And yet, that sheepish smile again. The shit was wrong with my commander?

"Geth, twelve o'clock," I announced as the synthetics in question came into my sights. Honestly, it was a welcome distraction from trying to figure out the bizarre complexities of human courtship.

"Take 'em out!" Shepard ordered, her head snapping back around and her sights locking onto the machines. _That _was the Commander Shepard I knew.

I grinned, and beneath the music, I heard my mandibles happily clack against my faceplates. "Aye, aye, commander," I called down, sub-tones again giving away the unheard joke.

"You're not Alliance…" Kaidan commented from the inside of the bag.

"He's teasing, Kaidan," Shepard told him as I opened fire.

"How can you…" Kaidan made a funny little noise that made me draw my mandibles closer against my face in distaste. "…even _tell_, Shep?"

There it was again, _Shep. _I wondered why the biotic was so familiar with his CO, but then, I knew I had no room to maneuver on that front. There was just something about Shepard that drew you to her. She listened to what you had to say, asked after her crew with genuine concern, and went above and beyond any commander I'd ever had, turian or otherwise.

And people wondered why humans had the smallest military but were the most tenacious.

"Because I know Garrus," the Commander said after a moment, as if it were obvious.

"That's it," I announced after another moment, ceasing fire. "Bag 'em and tag 'em."

"And I didn't even have to run over anything," Shepard added. She sounded happy, at least to me.

Kaidan, though, sounded appalled. "You've _run over _things?"

"Sure," Shepard said, "all the time. Usually when Garrus misses..."

"Hey," I interrupted, "I _never _miss. You drive too close for anything to be in range!"

"Oh, sure," Kaidan laughed weakly, "blame the CO. I thought turians couldn't do that under pain of court-martial?"

"I'm not in the turian military," I told him. "If I were, it wouldn't be screechy human music coming from the stereo. It'd be _Die for the Cause _on repeat."

"It'd be what?" Shepard asked.

"The turian imperial anthem," I reminded the humans.

"Oh my _God_," Shepard commented. "I can't imagine listening to _The_ _Star-Spangled Banner _more than once through at any given time."

"The what?" I asked.

"American national anthem," Shepard elaborated. At the looks she was still getting, she added, "I'm earthborn, gentlemen."

"Are you really?" Kaidan asked, sounding surprised.

I couldn't help it. I stuck my head down into the main chamber again to ask, "You didn't know that?" For once, I was glad they couldn't hear the sub-harmonics. Mine were a bit annoyed just then. _How do you not know that about the woman? Hell, even Wrex_ _knows that one. _

"No," Kaidan said, sounding as amicable as possible with his head in a puke pouch (Shepard's words, not mine). "I always assumed you were a colonist, Shepard."

"Nope," she said, almost proudly, "I'm from the human homeworld."

More "silence" as I opened fire again—without missing, thank you. After a few minutes, the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire ceased, and all that remained, again, was that damn music of Shepard's. I'll admit, I kind of liked some of it, even if my translator couldn't tell me what it was about. It was welcome break from the electronic music that pulsed in the nightclubs, anyway.

"Hey," I said after a moment, mandibles clacking in thought, "I think I recognize this one."

"I kind of consider it the anthem of the Mako," Shepard told me, sounding about as sheepish as the Commander ever sounded.

"Why?" Kaidan asked, his nose wrinkled in a way that I _think _meant distaste.

Had she not been driving, Shepard would've been studying her boots. "It's about a being on a roller-coaster…"

Kaidan burst out laughing, but it was my turn to ask, "About a what?"

"It's a human thing," Shepard told me. "It's basically a cart on wheels attached to a track and it's pretty fast, and goes upside-down, sideways, has loop-de-loops and steep dives…" She stopped when she realized I was laughing, too. "Yeah, I know; that's how I drive. Shut up, both of you."

Kaidan was laughing so hard, he had water leaking out of his eyes. And for the first time since he'd climbed aboard, I think he forgot about the urge to vomit. My two-tone laughter echoed against the Mako walls, and for once, it didn't sound quite so juxtaposed against my squadmates'. The two humans sang along to the chorus at the top of their lungs (here's hoping that's the right phrase). Shepard was just as off-key as ever.

And for the first time, something occurred to me.

"Hey, Shepard, Alenko," I said, "if I shut off my translator, would you teach me the words in… well, not _human_, but… you know…"

"English," Shepard laughed. "And sure. Be happy to."

The music shut off abruptly, just as I shut off the translator in my visor. It took twenty minutes of sounding out bizarre syllables, but eventually I got it. I think. Of course, I had no idea what kind of sub-harmonics should've gone under these sounds, but it was kind of nice. Felt like being with friends instead of just part of a shore crew.

Shepard flipped on the music again, and when the chorus hit, we three all joined in, and for the first time since I ever heard the song, I understood the lyrics (at least part they taught me):

_Follow me down for a ride,_

_You already talk the talk, and besides,_

_You know what's next:_

_Upside-down into a dive_

_Nose-to-nose with the stars alight._

_And don't you forget_

_Right here is the key to happiness_

A minute or two later, the Mako mercifully ground to a halt. "Move out, gentlemen!" Shepard shouted, already out of her chair.

"Aye, aye commander!" Kaidan and I both returned, and this time, there were no teasing sub-harmonics behind it.


End file.
